zart 1.9.0

This is a Dart implementation of the Infocom Z-Machine.

Zart

Dart Implementation of the Infocom Z-Machine.

West of House
You are standing in an open field west of a white house,
with a boarded front door. You could circle the house to 
the north or south.

There is a small mailbox here.
>

Some of my most memorable early gaming experiences were playing Infocom interactive fiction (IF) games. I also love programming and so decided to write my own interpreter in Dart.

This project is a labor of love.

Enjoy!

Features

• Plays V3, V5, V7, and V8 games.
• Supports loading different types of game files (.z3, .z5, .z8, .dat, .blorb, .zblorb, etc).
• Provides an API that allows you to build your own player for any platform that Dart runs on.
• Comes with a full-featured CLI player.

How Can I Author My Own IF Games?

Inform 7

Where Can I Find Games To Play?

• Zork Series: Search up "infocom-if . org" for the Zork series. Unfortunately I cannot link to it directly in this document because the site is old and still rocking http, not https.
• Many games can be found here: IFDB.org

As always, use caution when downloading games and files from the Internet.

How Do I Play Games With Zart?

You'll need a player that uses the Zart library. I've provided a CLI player and a web player.

Zart Web Player

You can use the Zart Web Player App, written in Flutter. You can find the app here at my project website: https://atebitftw.github.io/site/. The player uses the Zart library to run the games.

You can get the Zart Web Player source code here: Zart Web Player On Github.

CLI Player

If you want to see how this works, the source code for the CLI player is included in this package, in either the bin/ or example/ directories.

Flutter/Dart SDK Required

You will need the Flutter/Dart SDK installed on your system to use the CLI player. You can download it from Dart SDK Download or Install Flutter. Flutter comes with the Dart SDK.

Installation

You can then install the zart CLI player and run it to play games from the command line:

> dart pub global activate zart
> zart path/to/minizork.z3

Roll Your Own

Use the Zart library to build your own player. You would have to write your own client which would manage the i/o between the player and the interpreter. The Zart library provides all the necessary functionality.

How To Contribute

Fork. Code. Submit pull request. I'm open to any reasonable submissions.

Better support for z-machine v6 (the version we shall not speak of) is always nice. If loading a .blorb/.zblorb file, the interpreter currently only loads the game file from the file bundle. It does not load any of the other resources from the .blorb file, like images, etc, and it ignores any audio/image commands from the game. So this could be one area to expand on.

Reference Material

• Z-Machine spec used to develop this library: https://www.inform-fiction.org/zmachine/standards/

Fun Fact

This was the first package ever published to https://pub.dev back in the day.